Justice for Eric Garner: Death Ruled a Homicide

Daily News reports that:

It was a homicide — and the chokehold killed him.

Eric Garner, the Staten Island dad who complained that he couldn’t breathe as he was subdued by cops, died from compression of the neck, the medical examiner said Friday.

The autopsy also found that compressions to the chest and “prone positioning during physical restraint by police” killed Garner. The manner of death, according to the medical examiner, was homicide.

Garner’s widow told the Daily News she was relieved that the coroner finally confirmed what she suspected since her husband died on July 17.

“Thank God the truth is finally out,” Esaw Garner said. “Thank God for that.”

Staten Island prosecutors are still investigating the 43-year-old man’s death. No one has been charged.

The announcement from the medical examiner’s office was the latest development in a case that sparked national outrage after The News obtained a sickening cell phone video. It showed Officer Daniel Pantaleo using the banned chokehold on the father of six.

Police say they approached Garner because he was selling unlicensed cigarettes — better known as loosies — and that he resisted arrest.

The medical report confirms what we already knew. The police killed Eric Garner over some damn cigarettes.

Eric Garner did not threaten the police.  He was unarmed.  He did not punch or swing at the police.    He had his hands in the air. While his hands were in the air, a cowardly, punk cop, Officer Daniel Pantaleo, jumped behind Eric Garner and strangled the life out of him. Basically, this is a modern day lynching. After the investigation is complete, I hope that Pantaleo is brought to justice. Justice for Eric Garner!

Los Angeles Clippers Owner Donald Sterling Must Go!

Good morning. Check out my YouTube regarding Donald Sterling's racist remarks. Please comment, rate and subscribe.  After you watch the video, please sign the petition calling for Donald Sterling to step down as owner of the Los Angeles Clippers. The petition states that:

In the wake of the audio recording of Los Angeles Clippers' owner Donald Sterling's racist remarks about African-Americans and other racial minorities, it is incumbent upon not only NBA leadership, specifically, NBA commissioner Adam Silver, but also all NBA owners to move in solidarity by taking any and all possible legal actions to force Donald Sterling to relinquish his ownership of the L.A. Clippers.

The NBA is a league made up of mostly African-American players. Some of the NBA's greatest stars, past and present, have also been African-American, and the league has marketed and promoted the names and images of stars like Michael Jordan, Isaiah Thomas, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, and Magic Johnson all over the world to increase the popularity of the game of basketball as well as the NBA's own financial interests.

Donald Sterling's remarks are reprehensible and repugnant, but most of all intolerable and a slap in the face to all NBA's players and fans who wish to live in a world that is more tolerant, more respectful, and more loving then what Donald Sterling obviously envisions by his narrow-minded, bigoted, and paranoid views on race.

NBA players and employees should not have to tolerate working for nor contributing to the enrichment of a racist miscreant like Donald Sterling. Immediate action should be taken by the NBA to ensure that those who are a part of the NBA family are treated with dignity and respect; this means ousting Donald Sterling and any others who espouse his hateful views from NBA ownership.

Sign the petition.

Mr. President, Don't Turn Your Back on Us

USA Today reports that:

Some of President Obama's staunchest supporters Monday announced their opposition to his nominees for federal courts in Georgia.

The group, which included civil rights luminaries such as Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., the Rev. Joseph Lowery and Rev. C.T. Vivian, Georgia's black congressional delegation and a long list of African-American civil rights groups and legal associations, is protesting six nominees to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and the Northern District of Georgia. They say the nominees lack diversity and that one defended Georgia's voter-identification law and another supported flying the Confederate flag at the state Capitol.

"Somebody has made a tragic mistake," said Lowery, speaking from the pulpit at Ebenezer Baptist Church, Martin Luther King Jr.'s one-time congregation. "We've not come to attack the president. Somebody did this for him. And we say that he must undo it. It is insulting to come into Georgia in 2013 and bring a slate of nominees that is so unrepresentative of the state."

Lowery backed Obama early in his first presidential campaign when many black leaders were supporting Hillary Clinton; in 2009, Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Obama also presented Lewis with the award in 2011 and Vivian with it earlier this year.

The group says that only one of the six nominees is African American. Also, they say that nominee Mark Cohen, an Atlanta attorney, argued in favor of Georgia's Voter ID law, which they say aims to suppress black voting power, and that nominee Michael Boggs voted to keep the Confederate battle flag emblem on the state flag when he was a state representative. Cohen and Boggs could not be reached for comment Monday.

The White House supplied statistics to say that its judicial picks are more diverse than those of previous administrations — 18% of Obama's confirmed judges have been African American, compared with 8% for George W. Bush and 16% for Bill Clinton.

Yes, Mr. President. Overall, your judicial nominations have been more diverse than previous administrations. I commend that.

However, your past record does not excuse or justify your current Georgia judicial nominations. As you know, nominee Mark Cohen supported Georgia's voter ID law. Your Attorney General, Eric Holder, is fighting such laws in Texas and North Carolina. Clearly, you know that such laws are designed to suppress the black vote. Why on earth would you nominate a man like Mark Cohen? Why would you trust someone like Mr. Cohen to make crucial decisions on important civil rights cases?

Why would you nominate Michael Boggs, a man who voted to keep the Confederate battle flag emblem on the Georgia state flag? The Confederate flag is a symbol of slavery, racism, Jim Crow and treason. Anyone who embraces such a symbol is not worthy of being a federal judge. The last thing that we need is someone with a Confederate mentality making decisions in important civil rights cases.

Mr. President, African Americans are your most loyal supporters. As your poll numbers continue to decline, we remain by your side. Certainly, we deserve better than this. Mr. President, do not turn your back on us now. Our concerns should be more important than appeasing your political opponents.

TMZ, We Are Not Niggers

During a TMZ interview, hip hop mogul and ex felon Suge Knight said that he prefers the word "nigga" over the term "African American". He further said, "We ain't from Africa." No one expects a thug and criminal like Suge Knight to drop any gems of wisdom. After all, we are talking about a man who got rich promoting, producing and selling so-called gangsta rap. That music constantly refers to black people as niggas, bitches, hoes, etc.  It celebrates murder, drug dealing, misogyny, pimping, stripping, etc. So again, I do not expect to hear enlightening words from Mr. Knight. 

However, I do expect more TMZ, much more. As reported on the Huffington Post, TMZ had the audacity to create a poll asking their readers if black people should be referred to as African Americans or niggas.

TMZ's poll is a prime example of thoughtlessness and cultural insensitivity. It is clearly racist. Imagine if TMZ created a poll asking if Jews should be referred to as Jews or kikes. Imagine if TMZ created a poll asking if lesbians and gays should be referred to as LGBTs or faggots.  Those groups would raise holy hell, and rightly so.

Where is our outrage? While the world is up in arms about a backwoods, red neck reality star for expressing his religious views, we do not hear a peep from those same people about TMZ's racist poll. Where are the letters or petitions to TMZ condemning TMZ's poll?  Where are the demands for an apology to the African American community?

TMZ, we are not niggers. We are African Americans. As Malcolm X said, we did not come to America on the Mayflower. Our ancestors were kidnapped from the motherland, Africa and dragged to America. We were stripped of our humanity and reduced to chattel property. We came to this country in shackles packed in slave ships like sardines. We were forced to wallow in our waste for long periods of time. When we finally arrived in America, we were beaten, raped, burned, shot, lynched, castrated and butchered.

Not only were we physically oppressed, we were mentally oppressed. Over time, our enemy tried to blot out our original African culture, identity and history. However, our African identity did not die. It evolved, adapted, survived and became African American. Africa is in our blood, physical features, food, music, dance, worship and superstitions. Despite our oppression, we managed to salvage fragments of our cultural identity.

Not only did our oppressor try to destroy our culture, our oppressor indoctrinated us with the myth of white supremacy. To further degrade and denigrate us, our oppressor created and used the most offensive word in the English language, nigger. For centuries, the slave masters and segregationists called us niggers and fed us a diet of self hatred. Eventually, many of us internalized our oppression and began to adopt the racist language of the oppressor. Sadly, we began to call ourselves niggers. Instead of fighting that ugly legacy, TMZ has decided to perpetuate it.

We should be outraged, but we are not.  We would rather jump on another group's bandwagon.

What Does Immigration Reform Mean for Black People?

Good morning family. Yesterday, President Obama urged Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform. As reported in the Washington Post,

President Obama on Tuesday put the weight of his administration behind efforts to pass legislation allowing many of the nation’s 11 million illegal immigrants to earn citizenship, seeking to build on a rapidly shifting political consensus around the issue.

Obama dedicated the first trip of his second term to calling for an overhaul of immigration laws, making clear that it is one of his top domestic priorities. The president — who has said that not passing an overhaul in his first term was his biggest failure — also suggested he has little patience for Congress and would demand that lawmakers vote on his more permissive plan if they do not swiftly pass their own.

I have a few questions for you. Will these immigration reforms impact the African American community, a community struggling with chronic high unemployment?  How?  Should we support immigration reform? Why? Why not?  The President has prioritized the concerns of Latinos, women and LGBTs.  When will he prioritize the black community's concerns?  Please share your thoughts.

Mitt Romney's Token Negroes Address the RNC

As reported in the Root,

That rainbow coalition of onstage GOP stars is scheduled to include in part: Condoleezza Rice, the former secretary of state whose boss, George W. Bush, is conspicuously absent from the proceedings; Mia Love, an African-American Mormon from Utah who is running for a U.S. congressional seat; Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a purported finalist to join Romney on the ticket before Ryan was named to the second spot; a gubernatorial trio of Nevada's Brian Sandoval, New Mexico's Susana Martinez and South Carolina's Nikki Haley; and Artur Davis -- an African-American former Alabama officeholder, Democrat and Obama supporter -- who is a chief talking point for Republicans challenged on their diversity bona fides. (Missing is a favored son businessman Herman Cain, who rose high before flaming out during primary season.)

But it's doubtful that the multiethnic tableau will be duplicated in the sea of delegates shouting "USA, USA." That's been the case for years at conservative gatherings where -- despite featuring the song stylings of a Chaka Khan (at the 2000 convention) or the occasional gospel choir -- minorities, particularly African Americans, are also greatly in the minority.

In the Washington Post, African American Republican Raynard Jackson writes:

This is the fourth Republican convention that I have attended, and it is by far the least diverse. I now know what America would look like if all
(Mark Wilson - Getty Images) blacks and other people of color mysteriously disappeared. Reporters have been calling me, practically begging me to find them some blacks to interview for their various media outlets. Is this really the 21st century? I have not been showered with this much attention since I was a little baby!

But even more alarming than the lack of blacks as convention attendees, delegates or Mitt Romney staff members is the lack of blacks in the pipeline to be future party operatives.

Since there are so few African Americans at the Republican National Convention, people have started counting how many black people are attending. On Twitter, people are using the hash tag #negrospotting to describe that phenomena.

The GOP is largely a white, male, Southern political party that is openly hostile to the interests of African Americans, Latinos, women, the elderly, the middle class, the workers and the poor. No flowery speeches from Mitt Romney's token Negroes will change that ugly reality.